Benjamin Franklin Had More Than 200 Ways to Say “Drunk.” Here Are Our 10 Favorites.

January 18, 2011

Ben Franklin was just like us. Except, more prolific. With a hairstyle that would really not work for us. And then there’s that electricity thing. But regardless of our differences, he would have made an amazing blogger (Poor Richard’s the Tumblr!), and it goes without saying that we would have jumped at the chance to party with him. Thankfully, his legacy lives on in myriad forms, not least, in his cataloging of the many, varied, and special ways you might explain to friend or foe that you are “under the weather” in “that way.”

Also thankfully, Mental Floss has seen fit to chronicle his “catalog” — first published in the Pennsylvania Gazette on January 6, 1737 — in honor of his 305th birthday yesterday, so that we can read it again and again and apply it to our fridge with magnets just in case. They’re all pretty great, but here are our 10 favorites, a/k/a things you will most verily tire of us saying, sloppily, to express our inebriation: